Hidden Help
by Fandomtastic
Summary: Narada has come and past. Now the Enterprise is limping through space as her crew attempts to keep it afloat. Since the begining Jim has gone out of his way to make it easier on the crew, at the sacrifice of himself. Hurt!Jim Protective!Crew


**Note: Don't own any of the Star Trek related ideas but I do claim the idea. (**you are welcome to adopt or even make it better as long as you send me a statement saying so with a link. I love fanfiction and love to read what others come up with**)**

**Rated T- just in case**

**No pairings- Kinda OOC- Wrote it for fun**

**I don't care for reviews. I didn't put much effort, just wanted to throw it out there for people to enjoy. Have fun!**

Narada incident is gone and the _Enterprise _is limping along to Earth. Jim was at the bridge when the impossible happened. His very own hand pick Chief Engineer passed out after having a cold, no sleep, and working non stop for the past week.

"What do you mean you found him hanging upside down fixing a wire?" Jim slowly exclaimed. He rubbed his forehead. Though his injuries had healed and were on the mend he had not had sleep beyond passing out. Even now he would nod off for five minutes or a lucky thirty every once in a while.

Not that it wasn't unnoticed but everyone was doing it. Jim was sure there had been a moment when Spock seemed to concentrate on a tile a little too intently. Positive that Spock had somehow managed to nap unintentionally with his eyes open. Jim stole the file he was working on and completed it before opening the next one and working half way through it before Spock blinked into awareness. It said a lot when the half Vulcan did not notice. Jim would do this every time one of his workers would nod off. Surprisingly and gratefully, none noticed.

"Just like I said Jim, the man almost killed himself with all the damn blood running to his brain. Poor ensign had a fucking heart attack before freaking out. I had half the damn department flood into my bay. Had Pike not been in a medical coma, the man would have woken up with all the noise." Bones snarled. Despite the attitude, his eyes spoke of slight amusement. Jim snorted, and gave him an eye signal. They had been friends so long that simple things could say a lot.

"The man will be fine. If the idiot had come to see me like they are suppose to!" The doctor screamed the last sentence at the unconscious body behind him. Uhura snorted at the statement. "This stupid accented bastard will be off duty for three days."

"Damn. Okay. Have his little minions contact me. I'll arrange a schedule. We need to fix the turbines and cooling system to keep this ship afloat." Jim sighed.

"Yes, Captain." McCoy sighed. He turned to see Scotty waking up and getting up. "Aye! Sit your ass down before I hypo you into a coma, you st-"

"Better him than me." Jim muttered earning a few smiles and fake coughs. Even a smile raised eyebrow from Spock. A temporary peace resided. Jim closed his eyes for bit as he reviewed everything needed to cover what Scotty couldn't manage being sick.

"Engineering to Bridge." A voice interrupted.

"This is captain speaking."

"Captain. We reporting in as the CMO told us to."A small frightened cadet reported. A tiny bit younger than Chavok it seemed. Poor kid.

"Ah, yes. Compile a list of everything that needs fixing, down to the broken lightbulb by the supply closet. A separate list for things that can't be, like those warp cores. Make sure the people down there are on rotation schedules or I'll send Bones down there to set you straight."

"Yes, Captain!" The cadet and some random voices chimed. He cut the connection after a nod.

"Captain, why is an inventory of areas that can not be repaired imperative?" Spock asked. Jim smiled. The nosy bridge chimed in. If they were all cats their ears would be twitching.

"Just because it can not be repaired does not mean it can not be replaced. If you take things that are broken and use their parts with others we can at least repair most of our broken accelerators. We might not have warp but a speed faster than this can save us lives and supplies." Jim simply responded with a yawn. Carefully stretching in a way as not to agitate his tender ribs.

Spock nodded and turned away. Jim felt slightly dismissed and ignored it. Spock was Spock. He had an exception to certain human protocols and social tendencies. He instead pulled up his growing report lists and organized them. He wrote his own for the days first before attending to the others. Shifting every once a while, he was oblivious to the admiring and respectful glances he received from the crew as they observed the way he seemed unstressed and only slightly troubled by the growing distress on the ship. Soon, the Alpha shift ended and he was tapped by Sulu who indicated the small clock on the corner of his screen. Jim smiled and thanked him before gently getting out of his seat.

"I'm fine, Spock. Just being careful." He reassured the stone faced Vulcan who gave a vibe of guilt. Despite the reassurance, the halfling simply bore holes into the side of his head with his stares.

"Though illogical, I wish to send an apology for my previous actions while being emotionally compromised." This caused Jim to pause. He didn't turn.

"You're right it is. You were right to react how you did. Shows you care. That you still are human under all that Vulcan-ness", Jim continued walking. He had a place to go and things to fix.

* * *

Jim had a one set mind as soon as he reached the engineering bay. Going from ordering people to jobs to sending people to get food. He at least ate before remembering he didn't remember the last time he did. Shrugging the young captain took Scotty's old spot and hung upside down fixing wiring while discussing how broken machines could be put to use for parts. Uncaring that he had spent all his rest time and a good half of the day there instead of sleeping, he continued. Soon the short rotating shifts had all gotten to know the captain. Whether it was talking or being told what to do. The crew in the bay felt a good respect for the captain that had taken over Scotty's shift and done more than required. After receiving a word later the next day inquiring where the wayward captain was, they assisted him in getting ready for his shift. One cadet even lent him some spray of descentasizer to minimize the "engineer's musk" which consisted of sweat, BO, oil, smoke, and whatever else they came across. By the time he arrived at the bridge, they somehow managed to miss the smudge of oil on his face.

"What's up guys?" Jim huffed in amusement as he plopped on the chair and crossed his legs.

"Keptan, where iz your chirt?" Chevok asked. Alarmed, Jim looked around before noticing it was tied around his waist and his shirt had the long sleeves rolled up.

"The better question is where were you?" Uhura asked with crossed arms. Jim felt guilty. He should be on top on his game. He sighed and rubbed his temples. A habit that had formed in these past few stressful hours. He immediately created a story to cover up the fact that he had been more than helping the engineers._ More like running them_. He thought. He rolled down his sleeves while shaking out the creases and slight stains on his hard earned gold shirt.

"Decided to take a trip down to the engine area to see how it was going without Scotty. I may have gotten a bit caught up." He admitted slowly putting the shirt on and sitting down. He felt like he was being interrogated. Chevok looked confused by everyone else. Spock never changed. Sulu seemed to be concentrating on him while Uhura looked deeply upset. Trying hard not to shrink into his chair he gathered his wits.

"Okay, crew. We are here for a shift not to question my choices. Yes I was late. Won't happen again. Get to your stations and to your positions. We are weak, anything could take us out so I need all eyes on the spaces around us." Captain Kirk emerged. Not taking no for an answer.

Uhura seemed surprised and did as told. Not happily though if anything was to go by from the tortured PADD under her fingers. Huffing the unexplained tension in the bridge held for quite a while. A soon as quiet reigned, the overworked captain fell asleep atop his fist reading a report. He awoke with a sharp intake of breath when his ribs throbbed enough to awaken him from his sleep. He controlled the urge to grunt or hiss in pain when he awoke out of habit formed when living with Frank. A sign of weakness was never welcomed with open arms.

* * *

The crew was concerned. They may not have been attentive in the past since their Acting Captain had taken his spot but they had noticed the decrease his moral. Yes, the man did his work and productivity was high but Jim, the young adult under the title, had not cracked a joke while working anymore. He seemed buried under work. Outside of their shift he was never seen. The mess hall had not been graced with his presence since he came aboard. No one even knew where the man slept. He also was characteristically short tempered even though he never yelled, his tone would become icely impassive.

This concerned them greatly. McCoy had also voiced his concern but the load of patients had to come first. Many were bordering on life and death. Spock had been with his people, as assigned by the captain. He had to regularly report and communicate with the captain but never outside of it. Uhura was told to make a list of the dead living and missing. That was a hard job as many more names turned up and she hadn't even started on the Vulcan side of things. Chevok was in the coding department in all his free time. He was covering for most of the dead leaders there. Programs and firewalls had to be rewired due to missing parts of the ship and others that had to be reused for something else. A time consuming job. Sulu had reorganize all reports and messages into respect order before shipping them off to offship or to others among the ship. Including orders and reports from the Admiral and Federation that had to be ignored and inquiries from the Vulcan society throughout the various universes. Scotty was out like a light under McCoy's eye. Others were in the same position.

All in all, the main crew could not do anything, but rumors spread like fire on the _Enterprise _and what they had to say was concerning. One said that Captain Kirk didn't have a place to say and was reported to have been seen hopping from the air vents yawning and stretching as if from a nap. Another said that he had single handedly did all the jobs Scotty had to do and half the engineering. Yet another reported that he had been working in the labs recuperating lost data from broken hard drives. One even went to say the captain took naps while fixing machines to make sure he doesn't kill anyone else on the job. Had the captain not taken a moment for himself?

The shift had ended and the captain disappeared rather quickly. The gamma shift were trickling in. They all looked like zombies. Though they had the longest amount of sleep, they held the longest shift. Making others wonder how Kirk was still going with all these rumors. They knew it might be exaggerated but they must have held truth to them. Behind the young captains back the crew decided to meet together after some sleep and seek out the captain.

* * *

Five hours later, all of them convened on the beginning entrance to the engine area where many reported seeing him most often. With them was CMO McCoy with his bag of what many assumed were torture instruments for the acting captain and stowaway. Scotty, feeling much better, was already barking away at the unfortunate cadets caught handling 'her' wrong.

"Be careful with her, she is delicate like a flo'er. You! Get o'er here!" He snapped in his accent. Most of the crew stared in surprise at the voice the man carried. Even Spock raised his eyebrow a centimeter.

"Hey, you, yeah you. Where can we find the idiot of a captain?" McCoy impatiently gruffed. The frightened engineer squeaked.

"Uh, he was h-here four hours ago. L-last I heard-d he went to the cooling area." The young man managed.

"Thank you, Cadet." Spock monotonous and the young man saluted and almost seemed to run away.

"Good way to scare them." Uhura joked.

"Ya kan be scary, Doctur McCoy." Chevok himself squeaked. McCoy huffed and rolled his eyes before going in the direction the cadet had pointed.

"Just find the kid. Pretty sure the man hasn't had a bite to eat and a wink of sleep." The doctor growled, opening up a path of scared crew members.

The crew ended up going from place to place for an hour before finding any solid trace of the department hopping captain.

"Good God man. Tell me where he is!" The CMO barked. The had ended up near where the warp cores were suppose to be.

"What the doctor means to ask is if you could locate the Captain for us." Spock intervened slightly. He dismissed the angry retorts from the enraged doctor beside him.

The whole Alpha team had been astonished by the amount of work done when they left each location. The teams down here seemed to be proud to show off what the Captain had done for them.

"Hey! Get down from there!" Scotty yelled in the background before coughing slightly.

"Yeah, he is working on one of the generators. He also is instructing my people on how to finish it before he leaves for a bit." The thirty year old woman in worn Starfleet issued overalls and utility belt reported.

"Leaves for a bit?" Sulu asked, stroking his chin.

"Yeah, the Cap' leaves for a few hours, says he doing a little bit of work. He sent me to take his PADD up to the bridge for later. He didn't want to lose all the work he had done." She smiled.

"Do you mind if we take it instead?" Spock asked. She shrugged and handed it over before being told to something else by Scotty.

They looked through the history and almost had to blink again to make sure they weren't seeing anything. The former cadet had done over fifty reports today alone. They varied from ecology to Vulcan reports and even action plans. The stowaway had taken work from all of them and done it himself. This allowed them to do their other the doctor had certain reports and paperwork done for him. There was also a list of letters and voicemails for those whose families lost someone aboard the ship. They had all been worked on regularly at least each hour for the past three or so days, having only a single three hour block where nothing had been done. Bones took the PADD and stormed into the location the Captain was in.

"-ith no warp drive, these generators will be feeding into the accelerators that were just fixed. These currently aren't filtering the cooled water properly. So we need to reboot the whole system. We need someone from coding down here, preferably Lieutenant Alphonsus. I would do it but I have other things to take care of." Jim reported to a man older than himself, who was writing everything down on his PADD. The captain was hanging belly down suspended by a rope over a large contraption with a panel missing and broken wires exposed. Replacing the tool he had in his hands, he reached into his utility belt for some sort of electric tape. His hands seemed burnt and torn.

"Cap! We have a report of smoke in cooling bay!" An engineer burst in. Jim did not notice before zooming in on the engineer. His forehead wrinkled with sweat as he thought.

"Tell them to wait thirty minutes for me to finish. Reroute the generator the least in use to the specific area smoking. This generator will be out for a while but for now that will temporarily fix it." The engineer nodded, saluted and ran off.

"Not while I am here dammit!" McCoy scowled. He waved Jim's PADD in the rest of the crew witnessed the blood drain from their young captains face.

"Oh, hey Bones. Fancy seeing you here. Hey aren't you all suppose to be sleeping?"

"We could ask you the same thing, _Captain._" Uhura growled. Jim gulped and pulled himself up gently. His ribs had bruised again and if Bones had any say. He would be duct taped to a chair. He hopped down certain machines and land in front of them. His belt of tools clinking and jiggling together.

"Why have most of the reports under my responsibility been complete by youself, Captain?" Spock asked with his normal stance and hands behind his back.

"Why are you here, Keptan. Do you not feel tired?" Chevok questioned as the doctor ran a tricoder over his body. Tisking as he reached the rib area.

"Dammit Jim! You bruised your ribs again. One looks to be almost fractured, you idiot. Fuck, Jim. Why can't you rest like a normal person?"

"Guys I can only answer one question at a time!" Jim said putting both hands in the air in surrender as a hypo connected with his neck. "What the hell, Bones! Don't start with those!"

"It is my comprehension that they were rhetorical as we all know the answer to these question, Captain." He turned to face him more completely.

"Captain! You did too much while I wa shick!" Scotty comment with a sneeze into his sleeve. As he took over where Jim was, even stealing his utility belt.

"Whatever!" Jim mumbled as his jumped from another hypo attacking his neck.

"Where do you sleep, captain?" Sulu asked with crossed arms and cold eyes. Jim blushed and looked at his shoes.

"Out of the way in one of the vents close to the generators. The heat keeps me warm." Jim admitted with a high chin and none disappearing blush.

"Wat, Keptan! Why hav you not asked for won!" Chevok exclaimed. He seemed very surprised before realization of what the crew had wanted completely dawned on him.

"There are none left. I've checked. The Vulcans need a place to stay so I gave them the Captain quarters, its not like I need one!" He defended before realizing what he had said.

"How many hours have you slept?" The doctor demanded.

"Ten hours."

"Over what span of time?" Spock interrupted with the ever present eyebrow. Jim gave in.

"Since the attack."

"So since you came on this ship?" Uhura corrected and Jim flinched. He could feel the heat of anger rising in the group. He was running on heavy doses of coffee and energy drinks and a crash was at least three hours away.

"Godammit Jim!"McCoy hypo-ed purposely rough..

"Hey, I need my neck you know!"

"Not for the next day you don't! Sulu catch!" He warned. As Jim began to sway as the medicine kicked in.

"Catch what-oh!" Sulu with the help of Spock managed to catch the captain as he slumped under sedates.

"He'll be out for twenty hours with that dose."

* * *

**Thats all I wrote for this piece! If you want to continue it or change it up your welcome to! Just acknowledge me with a word or two in your piece. :) **

**-Tastic**


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